For years, I stayed away from church after having been a faithful Presbyterian who attended church, until my former congregation got rid of our pastor—who was actually following Christ’s teachings.

This was in California, where there were many itinerant farm workers. Our pastor tended to them and brought them the word of God. One day, a man in our church stood up and said, “I want my pastor to be concerned about my concerns and not about those of those ‘dirty Mexicans'”. At which point the congregation got rid of our pastor and I left.

The young people who were there at the time all tried to keep him because we thought this is what Christianity is about. But the congregation got rid of him. So I then went to the Episcopal Church where I found a more activist, more open group, with a lot of young people. I found a community there that was welcoming and that supported me and where I could support others. When I went away to college, I stopped and it was the Presbyterian story that stuck in my mind.

But it was also the Episcopal Church story that stuck in my mind. Eventually after years of not going to church, I started looking for that community again. I found it here, at St. Thomas and that’s why I’ve stayed.